[August 11, 2014]SHANGHAI
(Reuters) - Chinese search engine giant Baidu has been
told by authorities to clean up its content after
pornographic files were found on its online storage
service, the official Xinhua news service said late on
Sunday.

It said the instruction was given after
Beijing's cultural administrative authorities confirmed public
tip-offs that some Baidu Cloud accounts hosted obscene content,
citing a statement by Beijing's anti-pornography and
anti-illegal publications office.

Baidu declined to provide immediate comment when contacted by
phone.

China's authorities launched an anti-pornography campaign in
April as part of wider efforts to 'clean up' the Internet, and a
crackdown on online freedom of expression which has intensified
since President Xi Jinping came to power early last year.

In May, Internet firm Sina Corp was fined 5.1 million yuan by
Beijing authorities for allowing "unhealthy and indecent
content" on its online reading channel and on its main website.